DHS Withhold Evidence & That Is Just Fine

Gee, and what would happen to a mere mortal, like me, if I were to “withhold evidence” from a Federal investigation? I’m sure I’d get to keep my freedom, and my job… Yeah, right!–Bob Allen

Bob is absolutely right. He is commenting on this story at the Washington Post website: “Aides knew of possible White House link to Cartagena, Colombia, prostitution scandal.”

As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved.

But new details drawn from government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were given information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member — yet that information was never thoroughly investigated or publicly acknowledged.

The real scandal is that political power was used to thwart an investigation and nothing is being done about this malfeasance!

Meanwhile, the new details also show that a separate set of investigators in the inspector general’s office of the Department of Homeland Security — tasked by a Senate committee with digging more deeply into misconduct on the trip — found additional evidence from records and eyewitnesses who had accompanied the team member in Colombia.

The lead investigator later told Senate staffers that he felt pressure from his superiors in the office of Charles K. Edwards, who was then the acting inspector general, to withhold evidence — and that, in the heat of an election year, decisions were being made with political considerations in mind.

“We were directed at the time . . . to delay the report of the investigation until after the 2012 election,” David Nieland, the lead investigator on the Colombia case for the DHS inspector general’s office, told Senate staffers, according to three people with knowledge of his statement.

Nieland added that his superiors told him “to withhold and alter certain information in the report of investigation because it was potentially embarrassing to the administration.”

He felt pressure to withhold evidence in an investigation? But I doubt he felt much pressure to do his job and not obstruct justice. Those who wield power for evil purposes are unopposed.

There are many other aspects of the scandal listed in this article, including how people were put on “administrative leave” in the Administration for asking the wrong questions. Also, the Secret Service, interestingly, was angry that their people got punished while White House staffers got by with no investigation. That has all kinds of possible ramifications for recent events.